A dishwasher normally has a door which moves between a vertical closed position and a horizontal open position. When the door is open, it is positioned relatively low and close to the floor. To move the door from the open position to the closed position requires a person to bend over to reach the door with their hand. Alternatively, it is known that people often raise the door from the lower open position by using their foot to gently kick the door upwardly, so as to avoid having to bend over. Bending over to close the opened door is difficult for some people, while kicking the door closed may cause damage to the dishwasher. Therefore, it is desirable to eliminate or minimize bending by the person closing the door, and to eliminate kicking the door closed.
Accordingly, a primary objective of the present invention is the provision of an easily assessable handle on the inside of the dishwasher door to facilitate raising the door from the low open position.
Another objective of the present invention is the provision of a dishwasher door handle which is self-rising when the door is in the open position.
A further objective of the present invention is the provision of a handle which is pivotally mounted on the inside of the dishwasher door and which automatically moves from a flush position to maintain full dish loading capacity when the door is closed to an upstanding position when the door is open.
Another objective of the present invention is the provision of a handle on the interior of a dishwasher door which does not interfere with the lower dishwasher rack being fully rolled out onto the opened door for loading.
These and other objectives will become apparent from the following description of the invention.
This invention is directed towards a handle provided on the interior surface of a dishwasher door to facilitate lifting of the door from the horizontal open position to the vertical closed position. The handle is pivotally mounted upon the door and includes a counter weight so as to automatically maintain the handle in a vertical orientation, regardless of the position of the door. The handle is substantially flush with the interior panel of the door when the door is closed and automatically pivots to an upstanding position relative to the interior door panel when the door is moved to the open position. Thus, the handle can be easily grasped by a person with little, if any, bending, so as to raise the door from the low opened position. The pivotal mounting of the handle in the door allows the handle to be pivoted downwardly by the lower dishwasher rack when the rack is rolled onto the door for loading.